


A Curious Opponent

by sophiegaladheon



Category: Original Work
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Criminal Investigation, F/F, Flirting, Lawyers, Misunderstandings, Politics, Pre-Relationship, Shipoween 2020, Swordfighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:22:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27185842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophiegaladheon/pseuds/sophiegaladheon
Summary: Sir Evelyn Baudelaire, sergeant of the Queen’s Guard and expert duelist, is intrigued by the strange woman she spots in the fencing salon.  The woman, it should be noted, absolutely, positively, without a shadow of a doubt, cannot fence.
Relationships: Best swordswoman in the country/Worst swordswoman in the country, OFC/OFC
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13
Collections: Shipoween 2020 - The Halloween Ship Exchange!





	A Curious Opponent

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ForsythiaRising](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForsythiaRising/gifts).



The woman was dressed sensibly, in the style common to those who frequented the gymnasium. Her knee breeches and practical leather shoes were unadorned but plainly of good quality, and her hair, which was pulled away from her face in a simple braid that dangled to the small of her back did nothing to distinguish her from the dozens of other young women from good but not exalted families who regularly frequented the gymnasium. 

But the leather of her protective jacket was new and unmarked, and the foil in her hand was held with a grip more baldly determined than comfortable or practiced.

Sir Evelyn Baudelaire, sergeant of the Queen’s Guard, paused her casual observation (unabashed snooping) and turned to her companion that afternoon.

“Lillian, my dear, who is that?”

Sergeant Lillian Cadieux broke off her conversation with a huff at Evelyn’s probing inquiry and elbow. “Well why are you asking me?” she said, taking a quick glance across the room at the woman in question before turning her attention back to Evelyn. “Do you think I know everyone?”

“Why, but you do know everyone.” Evelyn laughed at the grimace that flashed across Lillian’s face. For as much as her friend liked to deny it, she truly was one of the best sources of gossip and information in the court, short of the kitchen maids or the Queen’s Spymaster herself.

“Oh, very well,” Lillian grumbled, looking once more towards the object of Evelyn's attention.

The woman was working with Rayne, the old equipment caretaker for the gymnasium. 

It wasn’t the sort of place that had instructors—most of the women who found themselves drawn to the gymnasium were already well on their way to military or guard careers and merely needed a place that provided them the facilities for practice and general exercise.

Evelyn had found it when she was still a young cadet and continued to come back even now, when she had the full facilities of the royal court available to her, because it was quiet and anonymous and comfortably familiar. It was unusual to get beginners since there was little to offer them.

But, if a woman was willing to try, they wouldn’t be turned away. Rayne, who maintained the sporting equipment and loved to regale the younger generation with tales of her days serving the current queen’s grandfather, would step in and teach any newcomer the basics, or at least enough that they wouldn’t hurt themselves.

Rayne seemed to be having a difficult time. 

She shouted something at the stranger who nodded, the frown on her face evident even from all the way across the room, and repositioned her feet. Rayne dropped her head into her palm.

“Oh, dear,” said Lillian.

“What?” Evelyn asked. It didn’t look that bad. Across the room, the woman lunged. Evelyn, widely regarded as the best duelist in the kingdom, flinched. Well. Perhaps it was that bad.

“That’s Frances MacFie. She’s a lawyer. Recently graduated from university, holds a junior position at the Queen’s Law Courts, specializes in contract law.” 

Evelyn raised an eyebrow. Interesting, in that it told her something and yet nothing at all. “But why is she here. Doing . . . that?” They watched another moment as MacFie continued to flail and fail.

“I don’t know,” Lillian said firmly. “As I have said many a time, I do not know everything. Now, did we come here to practice, or are we just going to gossip away the hours like the court dowagers?”

“Oh, very well.” 

Across the salon, Frances MacFie, junior practitioner at the Queen’s Law Courts, lunged, overbalanced, and landed, flailing, with an indecorous splat on the leather matting. Evelyn, being a gentlewoman and a knight of the realm, didn’t laugh. Much.

* * *

Under normal circumstances, a dueling tournament was Evelyn’s idea of a perfectly fine way to spend an afternoon.

There were, however, not normal circumstances.

“What do you mean, I’m obligated to attend? I’m neck-deep in dealing with that embezzlement case in Duchess LeBeau’s household, and with the fresh rumors of Sylvanian assassins flying about General Frossard has everyone on high alert. I don’t have time to go and show up a bunch of decorative nobles who barely know which end of a sword is which.”

Lillian rolled her eyes at the dramatics. “Well, that is the price of success in the field. You’re a hot commodity in the dueling world, and General Frossard wants to keep the decorative nobles happy. And hopefully distracted enough to be too busy to plot. You get to be today’s distraction.” She stuck her arm into Evelyn’s wardrobe and pulled out her fanciest dueling saber. “Go out and put on a show.”

Evelyn took the sword with ill grace and grumbled under her breath as she stalked down the palace hallways towards the covered amphitheater where the court held its smaller sporting displays. The assortment of inhabitants and visitors she passed scurried out of her way as she hurried by, sending up the occasional cry of surprise and alarm. With conscious effort, Evelyn slowed her pace and rearranged her features into something less thunderous. The clerks and maids had done nothing to draw her ire, and it would do her no favors to blatantly antagonize the arrogant layabouts she was about to face with anything other than her skills.

The first few rounds of the tournament passed quickly, and Evelyn made no effort to dispatch her opponents with anything other than the greatest efficiency. The crowd clapped politely as she bowed and left the field, but she could hear the shifting and murmuring of a dissatisfied audience. The details of her embezzlement case distracted her, though, and it wasn’t until a fellow guardswoman delivered a swift kick to the ankle and a hissed admonishment that she managed to pull her attention back to the event at hand. 

“Get your act together. Give them a show—do you want them to go crying to their noble mama’s and papa’s that the Queen’s Guard shamed them in public?”

Evelyn ducked her head, embarrassed. Politics were not her strong suit, but normally she could play the game better than this. As she stepped out for her next bout, she steeled herself to give a better performance.

Stepping into position and glancing at her opponent, something—the flash of a hatpin, an unusually still form—caught her eye in the stands. One of the spectators—although outwardly unassuming—drew her attention and Evelyn stared. The woman, the lawyer Frances MacFie who most definitely could not fence, stared back. When she noticed that Evelyn was watching her, MacFie flushed and looked away. Evelyn drew her own attention back to the matter at hand, as the referee signaled the start of the bout.

Well, she thought, as she did her level best to provide a spectacle for the audience and a chance for her opponent to at least try to appear competent, that was all very curious.

It was probably a coincidence. Or at the root of some heinous anti-government plot, knowing her luck.

Still, if anyone were to later accuse Evelyn of showing off some of her flashier moves—the sort she would usually consider the worst sort of dramatics—and of sending the occasional wink in the direction of a certain member of the audience whenever she happened to catch her eye, well. Well. She certainly wouldn’t deny it. After all, what could be the harm in flirting with a pretty girl? And Frances MacFie, junior member of the Queen’s Law Courts had an absolutely charming blush.

* * *

Evelyn groaned dramatically—but not, she thought, overdramatically—as she let her head drop to her desk with a thump. Lillian cackled madly, reading the missive that had come that morning from the Treasury over her shoulder.

“I am a fool,” Evelyn moaned, “A thrice-damned, terribly incompetent, utter fool.”

“You’re certainly in trouble now,” Lillian said, as soon as she got enough breath back to manage any words at all.

Evelyn raised her head and stared at the damning piece of paper. There, underneath the official letterhead, were the words that were to guarantee her personal and professional humiliation. The Treasury was taking over her embezzlement case. It had been, the letter said, linked to a much wider series of crimes that were outside the investigative scope of the Queen’s Guard. She was to turn over all of her collected information and evidence to the Treasury’s investigators by the end of the week. 

And there, at the bottom, one single sentence that underscored her humiliation. The name of her contact at the Treasury. The lawyer Frances MacFie.

“Flirt with a pretty girl, I thought,” Evelyn muttered as she folded up the letter and stuffed it back into its envelope. “No harm in that, I thought. Everyone likes to make a pretty girl blush, and there’s nothing wrong with that, I thought, so long as she flirts back and doesn’t tell you off. I thought she was just having a bit of fun. Didn’t even know she worked for the Treasury. She was probably spying on me.” Swiftly she turned around and fixed a glare on Lillian. “Did you know? You said she worked for the Law Courts.”

“Hey now, don’t get angry with me. She does—she’s probably attached to the Treasury special for whatever this investigation is.” Lillian sighed, leaning against Evelyn’s desk. “Don’t worry, it will be fine. You haven’t done anything inappropriate; you’ve never even spoken to the woman. You’re being dramatic. Just go and deliver your papers and you’ll never have to see or think about Frances MacFie ever again.”

She laughed and skipped out of the way as Evelyn aimed a kick at her shin. “Remember, this whole investigation is a classified government secret—even if she was spying on you, she can’t go telling people about you being a dope without breaking a hundred different oaths.”

Evelyn sighed and turned her attention to the giant piles of papers she needed to sort through and arrange to be transported. Lillian was undoubtedly correct. It would likely be nothing more than her personal pride that was hurt. Still, it was humiliating. Perhaps this truly did mean that she spent too much time focused on her duties, if this was the state of her after a single romantic misunderstanding. 

It went against her reputation for having a charming, roguish personality to be affected like this. It would not do. Once this was all over, perhaps she would join some of the younger Guards on their evenings of drunken carousing.

Why had she stopped doing that? A headache throbbing behind her eyes and Evelyn rubbed her forehead. Right. Because she was getting old.

But one night for a bit of levity might be in order.

Especially if the coming embarrassment was going to be as bad as she feared.

* * *

The walk to the Treasury building felt longer than it rightfully should. Once inside, Evelyn carefully navigated the dimly lit hallways in search of Frances MacFie’s office. Despite her caution, she still managed to get lost twice in the labyrinthine old building.

Finally, heavy boxes slipping in her sweaty hands, she found it. Slowly, a faint trembling in her fingers betraying a nervousness she hadn’t felt before a fight in years, she set down her boxes and knocked.

As she bent down to retrieve her vital delivery, the door opened and Evelyn looked up to see the face of the woman she’d been curious about, attracted to, and dreading over the past few weeks. At the sight of Evelyn, still half crouched over her stack of boxes, Frances MacFie’s eyes bugged wide, and she flushed bright pink.

It was still cute.

“Um, begging your pardon, I was instructed to deliver these to you.” Evelyn was unreasonably proud of herself for managing to pull together an appropriate, coherent sentence.

Wordlessly, Frances MacFie stood back and let Evelyn into the room. 

It was small, filled with boxes, with a writing desk and chair crammed into the back corner. Evelyn awkwardly deposited her contribution onto one of the pre-existing piles of bureaucratic sediment and turned around to see MacFie had followed her in, shutting the door behind her. There was little room for two people in the tight space, and her skirts brushed against Evelyn’s shins as she moved past.

“May I see your instructions, please?” MacFie asked. She had a soft voice, Evelyn noted as she handed over the letter, but the kind of soft voice of someone who maintained an aura of quiet through conscious effort, rather than by natural inclination. She’d met some of the opposite sort in the Queen’s Guard, where it was beneficial to be loud.

MacFie let out a squeak and brought a hand up to cover her face as she read the letter. “Is there a problem?” Evelyn] asked, hastily glancing over MacFie’s shoulder to make sure she gave her the correct letter and not something rude or shocking. That was the sort of thing that some of her colleagues would do, or set her up to do. The Treasury’s letterhead peered reassuringly back at her; the problem indiscernible.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” MacFie said as she sat down, “you must think me a proper fool.”

“Frankly, I don’t know what to think of you at this point,” Evelyn replied honestly. This was not going at all the way she had expected. “I don’t think I know enough about you to form any sort of real opinion.”

“Well, that’s very kind of you. But I know that I’m making a great big fool of myself.” MacFie sighed, and an expression came over her face that Evelyn had seen before, but only on men and women about to confront the hangman’s noose. 

“I apologize you were made to come all the way here,” MacFie said stiffly. “The investigation should have sent someone to pick up your documents from your office. Unfortunately, it seems one of the clerks arranged for you to deliver them yourself—”here she took a deep breath”—because he knows I fancy you.”

The final words arrived in a rush and it took Evelyn a moment to parse them. Once she did, she burst out laughing. At the look on MacFie’s face she tried to bite it back, but the reaction is near involuntary. “But why are you apologizing?” she asked. “That is so stupid.”

MacFie continued to look stricken, and Evelyn was certain she was not doing this properly at all. “It is just a silly prank. It isn’t your fault. Why should I be mad at you? It wasn’t that difficult to carry everything over myself.” A thought struck her. “Unless you’re apologizing for the other thing. Which, you don’t need to do that, either. Here.” She stood up straight and stuck out her hand. “Let's start again.”

MacFie was watching her wide-eyed and Evelyn was aware she was being ridiculous, but there was a distressed woman in front of her and this whole encounter was so incredibly odd and she did not have a manual for this.

“Hello, my name is Sir Evelyn Baudelaire. I’m a sergeant in the Queen’s guard and an expert swordswoman. Please call me Evelyn. I like to flirt with pretty women and I’d like to flirt with you, if you’re agreeable to that.”

Slowly, MacFie reached out and slid her hand into Evelyn’s. “Hello, Evelyn, my name is Frances MacFie. Pleased to make your acquaintance. I am a lawyer in the Queen’s Law Courts, currently on special assignment to the Treasury. I am a terrible swordswoman but fantastic at chess. I also like to flirt with pretty women, and I am very much agreeable to flirting with you.”

Evelyn shook her hand and grinned. This day was looking up.

* * *

It turned out that Frances was still an appalling student when it was Evelyn trying to teach her how to use a sword, but Frances insisted the lessons were much more fun than the ones she had with Rayne.

Besides, Frances inevitably got her back when trying to teach Evelyn about chess, or law, or any of a hundred other things. So, it worked out perfectly fine in the end.

They mostly enjoyed the chance to spend time doing what the other loved, and doing it together, after all.


End file.
